Howard Markel Installed as First George E. Wantz, M.D. Professor of the History of Medicine

Howard Markel (M.D. 1986), Ph.D., was installed on June 15 as the first George E. Wantz, M.D. Professor of the History of Medicine. Wantz (M.D. 1946), a distinguished surgeon noted particularly for his skills and techniques in hernia repair, was also an author and teacher and, at the time of his death late last year, was a clinical professor of surgery at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and an attending surgeon at New York Weill Cornell Medical Center, where he had worked for more than 50 years. The George E. Wantz Professorship in the History of Medicine was made possible through a gift from George Wantz and his wife, Diana, and recognizes Wantz's lifelong love for the history of medicine.

In 1994, Wantz gave his remarkable collection of antiquarian books to the U-M Taubman Medical Library, and in 1997 he presented to the Historical Center for the Health Sciences his outstanding collection of 70 antique surgical and medical instruments. An exhibition of some of the instruments from the George E. Wantz, M.D. Collection, entitled "Armamentarium Chirurgicum," was inaugurated as part of the celebration of the Medical School's Sesquicentennial in Ann Arbor in June 1999.

Markel, a practicing pediatrician, medical educator and historian of medicine at the U-M Medical School, is also associate professor of pediatrics and communicable diseases and director of the Historical Center for the Health Sciences. Markel is a prolific author of books and articles on medical history and pediatrics and frequently contributes to the "Science Times" section of The New York Times, for which he writes the column "Cases." During the 1999-2000 academic year, Markel was an inaugural fellow and scholar at the Center for Scholars and Writers of the New York Public Library, was named a centennial historian of the City of New York for his scholarly study of New York City and the history of public health and immigration, and served as guest co-editor of the February 16, 2000, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association which honored the University of Michigan Medical School during its sesquicentennial year.

Markel, in his remarks, which followed those of Wantz family members and of Catherine DeAngelis, editor of JAMA, noted the debt we all owe to the past: "Each and every one of us is the result of the work, instruction and kindness of others. We are our history, the sum total of our predecessors, and our history is an integral part of our future...One of the tasks of the historian is to remind and instruct those who have not acknowledged this point. I can think of no population more in need of such history lessons than those of us in the medical profession."